True (. . . Sort Of)

by Katherine Hannigan

  Because Brud had a plan: he would watch, still and silent, for a little while. I’ll learn, then I’ll leave, he decided.

  And at first his body obeyed. While the boy dribbled between his legs and behind his back, Brud’s hands stayed still. When the boy ran down the drive, Brud’s feet didn’t stir.

  Then the boy took the ball in both hands and jumped. As he floated through the air, he turned so the hoop was behind him. Blind to the basket, he threw the ball up over his head.

  Brud stopped breathing. It was an impossible shot.

  The ball didn’t know impossible. It soared to the rim and slid through it.

  And Brud Kinney’s plan didn’t have a prayer. “Oh m-m-man!” he whooped. His arms were pumping the air with happiness.

  The boy swung around. His scared eyes spotted Brud; then he was running.

  Just like before, Brud needed too much, too fast from his mouth. “Hey,” he hollered, “you p-play real g-g-g-g-”

  The boy was at the stoop.

  Brud tried again. “You play g-g-g-”

  The boy reached for the door. It was over.

  Brud hit his mouth with his fist to hurt it. “Unh,” it cried. He hung his head, and waited for the door to slam on him and his too-basketball-loving body.

  It wasn’t the words that stopped Ferris Boyd. It was the g-g-g-: the sound of a mouth that wouldn’t speak. It turned her around.

  She saw Brud hit himself. She flinched, like she felt it.

  When the door didn’t bang, Brud wondered if he’d been g-g-ing so loud he’d missed it. He looked up.

  There was the boy, on the stoop, staring at him.

  Brud took a breath. He pointed to his mouth. “H-Hard,” he said.

  And the boy didn’t leave or laugh.

  So Brud kept on. “Y-You play real g-g-g-g-”

  The g got him again. His head went down for good.

  Brud didn’t see Ferris Boyd walk toward him. He didn’t see the pad and pen she took from her pocket till they were under his eyes.

  His face went red. I’m so bad at talking, he thought, that boy thinks I have to write. His hands stayed at his sides.

  The pen and paper disappeared, then came back. Write here, was on the page, in pale, skinny letters. They weren’t telling; they were asking.

  So Brud did. You play real good. I play, too. I was just watching, he wrote.

  The boy read it, and glanced at the ground.

  Time to go, Brud’s head said.

  His hand wouldn’t listen. Want to play a game? it wrote.

  The boy’s eyes got scared again. He looked at the house, then Brud. He was weighing which it would be, and Brud could tell the house was winning.

  Give it up, Brud’s head insisted.

  Instead, his mouth said, “I’m B-Brud.”

  The boy gazed into Brud’s eyes, like he was reading them, too.

  Brud let him.

  After a long time, the boy took the pad. H-O-R-S-E, he wrote.

  “Your name?” Brud asked

  The boy shook his head. “Oh, the g-g-game!”

  The boy nodded. No Touch, he added, in big, dark letters. He held the paper in front of him, like a shield.

  “No t-touch,” Brud promised.

  The boy passed him the ball to begin.

  Brud was so happy he couldn’t keep his mouth from yelling, “Yes!”

  Before he took a shot, though, he raised his arm, like he was in school.

  The boy looked at him.

  “Wh-Wh-What’s your n-name?” he asked.

  Slowly the boy printed, Ferris Boyd.

  Brud’s right hand waved, Hi. He smiled so the tips of his teeth glowed.

  Then they played.

  It was over before Brud blinked. He got hammered.

  It wasn’t that Brud didn’t make any baskets; he did. It was because, sometimes, he missed. The boy didn’t.

  Still, even getting skunked, Brud’d had the best time ever. Because he got to watch the boy up close, without barreling through bushes.

  Brud’s last shot bounced off the rim and came back to the pavement. He turned to the boy. “A-gg-g-gain?” he asked, because he didn’t want it to end.

  But the boy had vanished. Nothing moved around that place except birds and a black cat.

  So Brud set the ball on the stoop and headed down the drive. Before he left, though, he turned to the house and raised his hand, See you next week. He wasn’t telling; he was hoping.

  In bed that night, Brud was having one of his visions. In his head, he and the boy were playing H-O-R-S-E again, and this time Brud was winning.

  “Time out!” he called, and walked over to the boy.

  “Hey, I was thinking,” he said, “maybe you don’t like talking, either. That’s why you have that pad. Maybe we don’t have to talk, ever.”

  In his vision, the boy nodded.

  And Brud smiled so his teeth glimmered.

  Chapter 21

  For Delly, Monday meant no more Alaska, no more detention, no more being stuck in her room.

  She wasn’t Dellybrating, though; she was worried. “Now I got all kinds of time for trouble.”

  So at recess she went to Alaska anyway, because it kept her from fun and fighting.

  After school she walked home with RB.

  “Want to skip rocks at the river?” he wondered.

  “Nope.”

  “Want to make a worm pie?”

  “Un-unh.” It was all too fun.

  “Want to watch TV?” he asked at the house.

  “No,” she sighed, because Galveston’d be there, too, with a fight all ready for her. She trudged to her room, to keep the peace.

  And it worked. Till Gal found her. “You’re ungrounded, not on vacation,” she snarled. “Get downstairs and help us clean.”

  So Delly did. She got the dustcloth and swished it across tabletops while she counted.

  “That’s not dusting,” Galveston declared. “That’s pushing dirt around.”

  Delly kept swishing.

  Gal got in her face. “Get the spray and start over.” As she spoke, Galveston did some spraying— of spit, on Delly.

  The spit spattered the numbers aside, so there was nothing between the sisters. Except Delly’s fists.

  “Gal,” she growled.

  “What?”

  Just before she hurled her hand into Galveston’s gut, Delly gasped, “I got to go.” She ran to her room and slammed the door between her and the fight she was hankering for.

  Gal followed her.

  RB was trailing the two of them, shouting, “Delly, count!”

  “One, two,” she howled.

  But Gal was banging, screaming the numbers to nowhere. “You’re not done. Get back there and finish!”

  Delly had her hand on the knob. In a moment it would be holding a hunk of Galveston’s hair.

  And Clarice came home early. “Hey,” she called, “where is everybody?”

  “Ma,” RB answered, “we’re upstairs.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing,” all three replied.

  “Gal, get down here.” Clarice summoned her.

  Delly heard her sister retreat.

  The battle might be over, but Delly knew the war would go on. She’d need a different plan for Tuesday, or Gal would be bald, and she’d be banished to Trouble Town forever.

  She fell on her bed, worn out from fighting the fight, and wasted from a week of counting.

  After supper Clarice came to Delly’s room. She sat on the edge of the bed.

  Delly was so spent she hardly noticed her.

  “One week and no trouble,” Clarice said.

  “Hunh,” she mumbled.

  “Delly,” Clarice told her, “your dad and I decided that when you have a month of no trouble, you get a Delly Day.”

  That woke her up a little. “Huh?”

  “Whatever you want, for a day.”

  Delly’d never had Clarice or Boomer to herself, exce
pt for meetings with police Officers and principals. The part of her that remembered happiness wanted to holler, “Jiminy fipes!” Instead, she murmured, “Hmm.”

  “I’m proud of you, Del,” Clarice rasped.

  Delly’d never heard that before, either. Just like that, those five words filled her up. They inflated her, like a baDellylloon. She wasn’t tiny or tired anymore. She was blown up to bursting with Clarice’s pride.

  Then there were no numbers, only happiness. She was Clarice’s again.

  “Ma,” she said, because the word sounded so good.

  Clarice got up. “Good night, Delly.”

  “Good night,” she replied. She fell asleep with her lips curling up to her eyes.

  Chapter 22

  There was a reason now, a good one, for staying out of trouble. It wasn’t the Delly Day or to keep her mom from crying. It was being Clarice’s pride.

  Tuesday morning Delly was still puffed up with it. It woke her with the words, “Ma’s proud of me.”

  But the numbers were backing up behind her happy thoughts. “Bawlgrammit,” she muttered; then she let them through. Clarice’s pride depended on it.

  The numbers were blown up, too. They were fat and fluorescent-colored. They sashayed around her brain singing, One, two, three . . .

  “Good morning, Ma,” she rasped as she came into the kitchen.

  “Good morning, Delly.” Clarice smiled.

  “Who do you think you are—strutting like you’re six feet tall?” Galveston hissed.

  The numbers trumpeted an attack. Ninety-seven, ninety-eight, they blared.

  Delly high-stepped it to the toaster, and the rest of breakfast went without a hitch.

  It was a long day of counting, though, even with Clarice’s pride. By recess Delly and the digits were tiny and gray again.

  On Alaska, as birds flapped around Ferris Boyd, Delly thought about after school. It’d be her and Galveston, with only the dinky numbers between them. There’d be hand-to-hair combat; Clarice’s pride would be crushed.

  “What’ll I do?” she mumbled. Everywhere else was fun or fights.

  Then the idea slapped her, like a smack to the brain. “Shikes,” she exclaimed.

  “It’ll be just like sitting on Alaska,” Delly told herself. “No fun, no fights. And no Galveston.

  “Ferris Boyd,” she whispered, “I’m following you home.”

  At the end of the day, Delly watched Ferris Boyd slump out the back door of the school, then she ran to the front. “Go with Cletis,” she hollered at RB. “I’ll be home later.”

  RB went pale with worry. “You in trouble?”

  “Nah,” she said. “I got a project.”

  “What kind of project?”

  Delly told the truth, sort of. “It’s about birds and squirrels and stuff. I got to go.”

  But RB knew her: those copper curls weren’t bouncing because she had a project. They were bound for a Dellyventure.

  “Hey,” he called, but she was gone.

  “What’s Delly doing?” Cletis asked.

  “Don’t know,” RB replied. He was going to find out, though.

  Chapter 23

  Delly sprinted out the back door of the school and across the playground. “No talking, no touching, no fun,” she told herself. “Just like Alaska.”

  She caught sight of Ferris Boyd at the bridge. “There you are,” she whispered, and crept along the concrete.

  Ferris Boyd clumped out the River Road, while Delly dashed from tree to tree. At the old Hennepin place, Ferris Boyd trudged down an empty driveway and disappeared in the house.

  “Chizzle,” Delly griped, because all that tailgating had come to nothing.

  The door swung open again. Ferris Boyd was on the stoop, with a bowl in one hand and a basketball in the other.

  “Shikes,” Delly squeaked, and dove in the ditch. She peeked over the edge.

  Ferris Boyd turned to the bushes beside the yard. Her mouth didn’t make a sound.

  Still, a black cat sprang out of the brush, like she’d called it. It ran across the grass to her.

  She sat on the stoop while the cat ate. After, it circled her as she scratched it.

  And the birds were everywhere. Just like at school, they swooped around her, but they didn’t come too close. “Because of that bawlgram cat,” Delly muttered.

  The cat stretched out on the stoop. Ferris Boyd walked to the drive with the ball. She bounced it, thump, thump, thump.

  “I hate that game,” Delly murmured.

  Ferris Boyd turned to the basket. She sent the ball to the hoop, like it was easy.

  “Whoa,” Delly rasped. Because even though she was too tiny for basketball, it was something to see a kid play like that.

  The ditch was better than Alaska, because it wasn’t school. But it was hard squatting, squished against dirt. Pretty soon every bit of Delly was screaming for a stretch.

  So she did. A couple hunks of dirt dropped, noises nobody’d notice.

  Unless nobody was a bawlgram cat. It raised its head and stared straight at her.

  “What are you looking at?” Delly mumbled.

  “Rowwwwr,” the cat replied, telling her and Ferris Boyd, too.

  The girl quit playing. She followed the cat’s gaze to the ditch.

  Delly ducked.

  Then there was silence. The silence of somebody sneaking up on me in a ditch, Delly thought.

  “Shikes, shikes, shikes,” she hissed as she crawled in the dirt toward River Bluffs.

  Before she got too far, though, she heard that thump, thump, thump again. She stopped, and snuck a look.

  Ferris Boyd was back playing ball. The cat was sunning itself.

  Then Delly didn’t stir.

  It was a long time till Ferris Boyd set the ball on the stoop.

  “Finally,” Delly breathed.

  The girl picked up her backpack and headed to the woods. The cat trotted behind her.

  Suddenly it was quiet. The birds and other creatures had disappeared, like she’d taken them with her.

  Delly still had awhile till Clarice got home. “I can go face Galveston,” she murmured, “or follow Ferris Boyd.” It didn’t take two seconds to decide.

  She crept out of the ditch and across the grass. She went into the woods.

  It was dark in there. She could hear animals up ahead and over her. But there was no Ferris Boyd. No bawlgram cat, either. “What the glub?” she whispered.

  There was a path between trees. Delly snuck along it. Alone in the shadows, she got nervous. “Maybe those two are watching me,” she muttered. “Maybe they’re witches, living in the woods. Maybe they’ll fly at me, and turn me into a —”

  “Mowrrrr,” it howled from above.

  Delly shot, like a sunlight-seeking missile, out of the woods. She dove in the ditch. Her head popped up, fists in front of her. “Come ‘mowr’ at me now,” she dared it.

  But there was no furry witch flying at her.

  The River Bluffs whistle blew five o’clock. Clarice would be heading home.

  “Bawlgrammit, I got to go,” she grumbled, and climbed out of the ditch.

  As she ran down the road, the corners of Delly’s mouth curled. “Ferris Boyd.” She laughed and shook her head.

  Because following her wasn’t supposed to be fun, but it had turned into a Dellyventure.

  Chapter 24

  She got home just before Clarice pulled in the drive.

  “Hey Ma,” she hollered. “From now on I’m not coming home right after school.”

  The color left Clarice’s face. “Why’s that?” she asked.

  “I got a project.”

  That didn’t help Clarice. Delly’s projects always got a grade of T for Trouble. “What kind of project?”

  “It’s about wild creatures and habitats.” She used Lionel Terwilliger words. “It’s me and a girl doing it.”

  “Is this for school?” Clarice kept at it.

  Delly sort of told the truth. “
She’s in my class. She’s new.”

  If there hadn’t been a week of no trouble, Clarice wouldn’t have trusted it. But Delly’d been different. “Hmm,” she said.

  Clarice had more questions, like Who’s watching you? and When’s it going to be done? Tallahassee was tugging on her, though, asking, “Can I eat at Fern Teeter’s?” and Dallas was yelling, “Ma, there’s smoke coming from the stove!”

  As Clarice ran to the house, shouting, “Dallas, don’t touch anything!” the Delly questions disappeared.

  “All right then.” Delly grinned.

  RB came to her room after dinner.

  She was lying on her bed, thinking about that invisible Ferris Boyd.

  He stood over her with his arms crossed. “So,” he said.

  “Hunh,” she replied.

  “You got a project, for real?”

  “Yep,” she answered.

  “What’s it about?”

  “I already told you. It’s about animals and where they live, how they hide in places you can’t see them.”

  He squinted his eyes. “Who’s it with?”

  “Ferris Boyd,” she said. “You don’t know her.”

  But RB surprised her. “The one who’s not your surpresent?”

  Delly didn’t say anything.

  “When are you going to be done?” he asked, because he missed her already.

  She shrugged. “You better keep walking with Cletis. Now I got to count. One, two, three . . . ” she called out, louder than any questions he could ask.

  So RB left. Outside her door, though, he breathed, “You can’t get rid of me, Delly.”

  Chapter 25

  Wednesday the counting was still killing Delly. Then there was recess.

  “Jiminy fipes.” She giggled as squirrels played Ring Around the Ferris Boyd. But mostly she thought about after school. “I’m going to find where you disappeared to,” she rasped from across the playground.

  At three o’clock she watched Ferris Boyd slump out the door and followed her.

  By the time Delly got to the ditch, Ferris Boyd was facing the bushes.

  And there was that black cat, sprinting to her.

  Bawlgram cat. Delly only thought it.

  Still, the cat stopped and turned.